inst Europe.
The flag of Louis XIV. floated on Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent. Italy,
France, Spain, and Flanders, were united in one close league, and in
fact formed but one dominion. It was the empire of Charlemagne over
again, directed with equal ability, founded on greater power, and backed
by the boundless treasures of the Indies. Spain had threatened the
liberties of Europe in the end of the sixteenth century: France had all
but proved fatal to them in the close of the seventeenth. What hope was
there of being able to make head against them both, united under such a
head as Louis XIV.?

Great as these dangers were, however, they had no effect in daunting the
heroic spirit of William III. In concert with the Emperor, and the
United Provinces, who were too nearly threatened to be backward in
falling into his views, he laboured for the formation of a great
confederacy, which might prevent the union of the crowns of France and
Castile in one family, and prevent, before it was too late, the
consolidation of a power which threatened to be so formidable to the
liberties of Europe. The death of that intrepid monarch in March 1702,
which, had it taken place earlier, might have prevented the formation of
the confederacy, as it was, proved no impediment, but rather the
reverse. His measures had been so well taken, his resolute spirit had
laboured with such effect, that the alliance, offensive and defensive,
between the Emperor, England, and Holland, had been already signed. The
accession of the Princess Anne, without weakening its bonds, added
another power, of no mean importance, to its ranks. Her husband, Prince
George of Denmark, brought the forces of that kingdom to aid the common
cause. Prussia soon after followed the example. On the other hand,
Bavaria, closely connected with the French and Spanish monarchies, both
by jealousy of Austria, and the government of the Netherlands, which its
Elector held, adhered to France. Thus the forces of Europe were mutually
arrayed and divided, much as they afterwards were in the coalition
against Napoleon in 1813. It might already be foreseen, that Flanders,
the Bavarian plains, Spain, and Lombardy, would, as in the great contest
which followed a century after, be the theatre of war. But the forces of
France and Spain possessed this advantage, unknown in former wars, but
immense in a military point of view, that they were in possession of the
whole of the Netherlands, the numerous fort